{#11} You bring junk to the table

Scenario #1:

Parents A bring home Little Girl B from China at 2 years of age.  They have two biological children and are excited about providing a home to an orphan.  Little Girl B has some moderate, correctable special needs that have to be addressed as soon a she comes home.  The surgery does not allow her the luxury of learning to trust her new family first.  She also struggles with control issues since her world seems to be spiraling out of control around her.  As she learns to talk, she starts lying to manipulate those around her.  It gives her a sense of control.  Mommy A was lied to a lot as a child.  It makes her feel very insecure and she vowed many years ago that any one who lied to her would be cut out of her life.  Where does that leave her daughter.  Mommy A set out to fix the lying through discipline.  It didn’t work.  The lying continued.  Mommy A carries around a lot of resentment toward Little Girl B and is convinced B is just a defiant child who needs more discipline.

Scenario #2:

Parents X just celebrated their 10 year anniversary.  They still don’t have children.  While they ache for children and have even started the adoption process, they take for granted their predictable life of work, peaceful meals, and a clean house.  When Toddler Y comes home, their life is turned upside down.  Toddler Y grieves heavily at night requiring long, sleepless nights of rocking, pacing, and soothing.  Days run together as the laundry and dishes pile up.  Parents X can’t remember the last time they had a conversation the deviated from whose turn it was to get up that night.  Toddler Y starts to settle in but needs constant attention.  Parents X are grieving the loss of their peaceful “before Y” life.  They even start to resent him for not giving them the time they need to recharge and catch up on household chores.  They probably really need a break but are committed to not leaving him with a sitter for the first 6 months home so he can attach and there’s no confusion about how Daddy and Mommy are.

I could go on and on.

While Little Girl B’s lying is not excuseable, it probably will never be fixable solely through discipline.  She needs healing.  She needs parents who are willing to understand where she’s coming from and can use that information to help her work through the underlying issues that motivate her to lie and manipulate.  She needs to feel like her parents are on her team so they can face her new culture and situation together.  Instead, Mommy A makes her B alone and like it’s always Mommy A against Little Girl B.  That feeling of isolation confirms that she needs to lie to keep from spiraling out of control.

For Parents X, no one really prepared them for how they would grieve their loss of independence even though they desparately wanted a child.  In their unexpected grief, they are not in a great place to help Toddler Y work through his own grief of losing a primary caregiver and possibly a culture.

Your situation might look different from the two I painted here but the point is we (parents) all have baggage from our past that we bring to the table as we relate to our children.  We often see our child are the only or primary problem.  Then it becomes us against the child. 

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

We, the parents, are sinful just as our children are.  That means we both bring junk to the table.  It just seems easier to identify their junk.  The fact of the matter is that we are the so-called responsible adults and we have the weight of being the emotionally healthiest we can be so we can walk with our children through their junk.  We have the responsibility to recognize our junk (or let someone we trust have permission to point it out) when it rears its ugly head and deal with it.  We have the responsibility to help our kids realize we’re on a team together…not us against them. 

Relationship is a two-way street. 

Here are some things to think about:

1. Examine how you were parented.  Is there anything you ever swore you would or wouldn’t do as a parent?  Is it justified?  How does that affect how you connect to your child?
2. How have you been emotionally wounded in the past?  Does how your child treats you or how she reacts to you pick at any emotional scabs?
3. What were your motives for adopting?  Motives drive expectations.  Does your adoption experience meet all your expectations? Why or why not?